Tim Wright was mulling over a couple of football scholarship offers, a promising junior wide receiver unsure of where he wanted to go to college, when he turned on the TV at home in 2006 to watch the Rutgers-Louisville game.

By the time it ended, he knew exactly where he wanted to play next.

“That game definitely had a big impact on me,” the fifth-year senior from Wall High School said. “The game, the pandemonium, the whole scene that night.

“We’re looking forward to having the same type of scene on Thursday.”

That 2006 game, more than any other, elevated Rutgers football into the national consciousness — the Knights’ 28-25 home victory over No. 3-ranked Louisville saw them improve to 9-0 — and remains both a source of pride and some frustration for the program.

It’s still an all-time highlight for the school, of course.

But it’s a level Rutgers has yet to return to.

That could change when Louisville visits for yet another ESPN Thursday night showdown, with the winner earning the Big East’s automatic BCS bowl berth.

And the players on this Rutgers team understand fully that this can be their 2006 Louisville moment in terms of what it can mean for the program.

“I was at that game (in 2006),” middle linebacker Steve Beauharnais said.

“It was definitely a magical moment. I’ve never experienced anything like that, and to this day it’s one of the most exciting days of my life — and I didn’t even play.”

Beauharnais, a high school sophomore at the time, even sheepishly admitted that he was part of the crowd that stormed the field once “Pandemonium in Piscataway” came spilling out of the stands.

“Yeah, I was on the field. Me and my father,” he said.

Despite losses last week, Rutgers and Louisville still have their BCS bowl hopes intact.

The Scarlet Knights, 9-2 overall and 5-1 in league play, have already earned at least a share of the program’s first Big East title. A victory against the Cardinals gives them the title outright and would send them to either the Jan. 1 Orange Bowl (against the Florida State-Georgia Tech winner) or the Jan. 2 Sugar Bowl (to face No. 4-ranked Florida).

Louisville (9-2, 4-2), could cause a four-way tie for first place in the Big East with a victory. But the Cardinals own the tiebreakers for the BCS bowl berth.

“This is why you play college football, why you put in all the work you do all year — to play a game like this,” senior safety Duron Harmon said.

A high school sophomore in 2006, Harmon, from Magnolia, Del., had heard of Rutgers but knew little about the school. That was until he watched that Louisville-Rutgers game.
It changed everything for him, he said. Just as it did for many other high schoolers. Just as Thursday night can do for another generation.

“I wasn’t paying much attention to Rutgers until that game,” Harmon said. “So I watched it and I remember thinking ‘that’s where I want to go.’ It really opened my eyes to Rutgers.

“I was watching the celebration and thinking ‘wow.’ What a scene. It would be great to duplicate that some day. Now we have that chance.”